To

You will never know, Dear Non-Reader, how important you were to me in my days—years—of incarceration. Even if you have not been there, the idea that you were there kept me going. Let this blog, this long, shocking work of secretive and pleading exposition and photography, stand as an expose of what I saw, heard, touched, tasted, lived: Soybean Island.

Yes, today

TODAY

I am on my way to Dustmitetown and a cargo plane full of rutabagas. And dust.











Not even secret snow symbols put out for me by the Eye-Nye-Hab Descendants will deter me from my escape.

A new life; A life regained.






They interest me no more than the orange cones of Soybean Island City:



or drainage:



Fencing:




The Secret Rooms of a Spying Culture:




And their diversionary artworks:



No, I will—I am—out in the snowy reaches heading to Dustmitetown and my ticket to the Free World.









Again, I think you do not believe me, think that I am either foolishly wrong or purposefully wrong.

Neither!

Today I will board a cargo jet. I have a special Purple Card that will allow me to be counted as a rutabaga. Certainly they will see that I am not a rutabaga, but they will believe the card over their own eyes. They will do as the card tells them; such is life on a prisoner island. Yes! I will be on a plane leaving for I Do Not Know Where. But, I will like it in I Do Not Know Where. I will be happy. I promise myself this.

Dear Non-Reader, you will never hear from me again.

I will no longer send these missives, this cri du coeur, this attempt to disclose and discover, and to seek help and salvation from, this cruel and invisible territory.

I cannot chance it.

This is my final correspondence.

And then?


I am gone:

A ghost.

A phantom.

A wallaby.



Yet, as a journalist, I must leave you with a final image. And with this image I finally reveal the complete headquarters of The Apparatus:

Visit Soybean Island

See it!

Know it!

Remember it!

Do not let it happen again!



Oneninefiveseven over and out and disappeared,


Goodbye To Soybean Island

Hovel Sweet Hovel

With my new position as Director of Directions and with my new importance as a member of the Espionage Wing of the Trustee Class for The Apparatus and the ensuing freedom and authoritarian pass-cards I have been presented, I have obtained a certain modicum of confidence. Enough so that I feel I can reveal my home. Yes, my little The Apparatus Approved & Provided apartment.







As you can see, I have a window view.

And, books! The books are in Icelandic, a language I cannot read.

But, now that I feel the possibility of escape—true escape from Soybean Island—coursing through my veins, I find that I am little nostalgic, nay proud, of this little room I live in.



Yes, things can indeed be a matter of perspective.

And I realize, Dear Non-Reader that you no doubt scoff at my optimism, my feeling that I will soon be done of this place. Quit of it. But, I feel, that it is not a joke or am I fooling myself.

Look!

I have a sink!



I can bathe half my body in that sink.

(I am not telling you which half.)

And,

I have a light!




And a chair!!




Yes, a small chair but a chair nonetheless.

I believe I have a found a route to Dustmitetown,

I believe that in Dustmitetown is an airport.

A cargo airport.

Where the Dust Merchants ship their dust to all corners of the world.

And corn. And soybeans.

And rutabagas.



Hot and Cold!

(Though only the cold works.)

Anyway, that is all I dare share.  Now you can see where I have lived. I will not show my sleeping pallet. No. Let this suffice and let me not get carried away and caught within the dark and secretive hands of The Apparatus.

Something is afoot and I will be fleet.

I will claim myself as cargo in Dustmitetown.


Goodbye from Soybean Island

Unrest

My plans to find the mythical burg of Dustmitetown have been put on hold. There seems to be some issue with the Anti-Snailians (the Eye-Nye-Hab Descendants) and I have been called in to the Greater Hive of The Apparatus and provide a report of there actions and whereabouts.

First in Room 3:




Where I waited all alone, no doubt being observed through hidden cameras and two-way mirrors and the whatnot of a spying culture.

Then I was led to Room 5:




Where I sat at a table.

Alone.




I was told—via an intercom—to look at the floor:



From there I was grilled about what I knew and when I knew it, again via intercom.

I told them what I knew which was, as anyone knows, very little. Though it seemed to me, in my own mind, that the Anti-Snailians must have begun some kind of physical action, some step towards revolution, for me to have been summoned so. The someone entered and I could only see their shoes and they gave me some food:



If you call that food.

I was then handed—again by a person whose shoes I was only allowed to look at—two photographic cards:





which said what they say.

i was told that these cards, when presented, gave me access to certain places in a certain manner for the purpose of finding out more certainty of what the Eye-Nye-Habs were up to.

I said I would do my best in a very sycophantic manner.

And then zI was dismissed into the Escher-like hall:



and into a transport and left off in the non-great outdoors:



And I walked to my hovel in the cold.

I will let you know what I know, Dear Non-Reader, when I know it myself. But I feel that my escape is imminent.


Oneninefiveseven,

Goodbye from Soybean Island

Myth, Art, Future

I still find time to wander. I have time to wander. I have time and I wander. Much like this paragraph, things are repetitious.

So, I try to find the public artwork here on the island:





even if it is not truly "public", nor exactly "art":





but rather a diversion and an attempt to block thoughts of the future.





There is no past, there is no future. But there is not some ersatz Zen Culture here on Soybean Island. No. More like a daily willful ignorance. Yet I, yes I, me, do have a past and tell myself (convincingly or nay) that I have a future:




Anyway: Art, Future.

Now: Myth.

I have heard tell that there is another town on the island. Yes. On the far reaches of the eastern shore--well, not on the shore--is a place called Dustmitetown.

In my official capacity as Director of Directions for the City of Cornana, I have heard reference to Dustmitetown and have seen references to Dustmitetown written in invisible ink.

Much like how I found proof of Stalag Ranville's existence, I am thinking of looking for the existence of Dustmitetown. We shall see.

At least it will be a break from the circular repetition of my daily draining existence.

Perhaps I can find a leafy place to sit?





Like a wallflower?




Beside the statue of a starving dog?






Oneninefiveseven:

Goodbye from Soybean Island

Captivity

Yes.



This is the view from my "office" as Director of Directions for the City of Cornana. As you can see, it has a nice view of the petite and stagnant Rutabaga River. The chain fencing is also a bonus, in the blind-eyes of the locals. Fencing, closure, sharp metallic objects are all valued here.





As far as my own captivity goes, it is still the psychological comic nightmare as always. As any reader of this exposé-journalism/cry-for-help blog knows, I am trapped like a pet kinkajou in some surrealistic cage within the bedroom of a sadistic child. A bedroom also surrealistic. But as any reader of this knows, I have no readers. None. Zero. Nada + Zilch = Nyet!








But, though unfashionable upon this isle, I have hope. A small rusted peephole of hope, but hopey hope nonetheless. Yes. Because, as Director of Directions (and as a secret double agent for The Apparatus against the rebellious Eye-Nye-Hab descendants), I now have access to formerly inaccessible places and documents and the official passes of the local officialdom.

But, as you can see below, even the seating in my office shouts "Captivity!":



As does the architecture above outside:



But I have plans. I have ideas. I have you, Dear Non-Reader, to lighten my mindless load and help me to continue, to hold dear, my dream of escape.

I mean, even blocks of wood are treated poorly here:

Visit Soybean Island

Yes! They are caged for cage-ings' sake!

By golly.

Yet. Yet . . .

There are still signs of escape:



A subdued "Hooray" is in order.

So, I have not abandoned my dreams. I still dream. I still sleep the sleep of a prisoner. There is and will be a way out:



And I will find it.

Oneninefiveseven over and not yet out.


Goodbye from Soybean Island